Plague
by Laura Harkness
Summary: “The President of the United States and the Administrator of NASA are on line 2 for you,” Jack Harkness is informed... And Ten, Rose, Jack and the Torchwood team are about to find out what the 21st century has in common with the 14th. Hint: it's not good.
1. Chapter 1

**PLAGUE**

**(A sequel to 'Big Bang', 'Terraform', and 'Evolution')**

**Disclaimer: **Inspired by 'Doctor Who' and 'Torchwood', with a big nod to 'Stargate' and a tiny, itsy-bitsy one to 'Star Trek'. Wil belongs to me although she's got a mind of her own.

**PROLOGUE**

Ianto Jones tapped lightly on the office's doorframe, interrupting Captain Jack Harkness's efforts to translate some unrecognized symbols on a recently recovered alien artifact. He waited patiently for Jack to acknowledge the intrusion.

"What is it, Ianto?"

The young man's eyes darted quickly to Jack's phone and then back to his face. "The President of the United States and the Administrator of NASA are on line 2 for you."

Jack snorted. "Come on, I'm not in the mood."

"This is no joke," was the reply.

Jack leaned back and scrutinized his colleague. The sparkle that was the dead give-away to an office prank wasn't present. Instead, Ianto almost imperceptibly nodded.

"Oh God," groaned Jack. Ianto turned to leave but was interrupted.

"Wait, stay here; let's listen to this together. I'll put it up on the speakerphone."

**  
ONE**

The Doctor and Rose Tyler were running for their lives, full-blast towards the TARDIS.

They were not laughing.

Behind them, hot on their heels, was a large group of very angry humans carrying pitch forks and torches.

The Doctor was fumbling for his key, pulling it out just as his body slammed against the ship.

"Hurry up!" screamed Rose. She was groping for her key in case it was needed.

"Hurry up!" she shrieked again after a quick glance over her shoulder.

"What do you think I'm doing?" snarled The Doctor as he finally yanked open the door, grabbed Rose and shoved her through the entrance ahead of him.

He slammed the door shut and locked it just as the first of their pursuers struck the exterior of the TARDIS.

Both of them, their backs against the door, were breathing hard. Rose was almost doubled over with the effort of taking in sufficient air. Her eyes were wide with fear and she gasped: "Do you think we should get out of here?"

The banging outside the TARDIS was increasing in volume, as were the muffled shouts.

The Doctor turned to look at her.

"Bloody humans! That's the treatment I receive for trying to be helpful – the proverbial 'get out of town'!"

"Doctor, maybe you shouldn't have mocked their beliefs about the 'Great Plague'."

"I didn't 'mock' them, I _respectfully_ disparaged them. There's a difference! And it _isn't_ transmitted through the air. Miasma! Pah! Isaac Newton should've accepted that and concurred with me! I don't understand why he refused to agree… Fleas and rats; rats and fleas; it's as plain as the nose on his pockmarked face!" The Doctor shook his head.

"Well, maybe his stubbornness had something to do with your yawning while he was talking about his discovery of calculus."

"Talking? He was lecturing me and if there's anything I do not need it's an endless pedantry on the generalized binomial theorem!"

Rose couldn't help but smile. "He really got to you, didn't he?"

"The only human I've ever met who refused to acknowledge that I was smarter than he. 'Standing on the shoulders of giants' indeed! You just wait and see if I help him with realizing his reflecting telescope!"

Rose touched The Doctor lightly on his shoulder. "I think we're done with Sir Isaac and the seventeenth century. I kind of doubt he'll want to see you again."

He sniffed. "His loss."

Rose thought to refocus The Doctor's attention by changing the subject. "This plague, then, where did it come from?"

"Oh, no one really knows for sure. Possibly Asia or Africa. At this point we're seeing the tail-end of it. The Great Plague of London killed about a fifth of the city's population and is one of the last major outbreaks. During previous centuries the plague could kill fifty percent of a community.

"No one understood its cause or how it spread, and it spread fast; before doctors or governments had a chance to reflect upon it, the plague killed a third of Europe's population when it first appeared in the mid-fourteenth century. People died by the hundreds every day and night. Huge ditches were dug and filled with corpses, covered over with dirt, and then more ditches were dug, filled and covered. It wiped out entire families and many people thought it was the end of the world.

"It's lucky you lot survived! You could've gone the way of the dinosaurs. Imagine that! The death tolls were staggering – it killed probably 200 million people during the fourteenth century. But that's not all – the plague had tremendous social and economic effects. Depopulation affected the social order; social mobility increased and labor became scarce.

"And of course, humans being humans, it led to persecutions, religious fanaticism and other counter-productive behaviors. Do you know that because cats were seen as in league with the devil, and as many people thought the plague was a sign of God's wrath against sin, cats were killed en masse? The irony of it is that if cats had not been so exterminated they would've helped to keep the rodent populations down and thus lessened the spread of the disease."

He shook his head and looked at her.

"There's nothing that says it couldn't happen again. Even with all your medical technology and sophistication. Consider Ebola, SARS and HIV. You are not immune from future pandemics."

The noise outside the TARDIS was getting louder. They were safe of course, but it seemed to Rose they'd way overstayed their welcome.

"I want to go home."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow; waiting for more.

"After being chased out of Cambridge I feel like it'd be nice to go somewhere where we're wanted, like my mum's…"

The Doctor smiled at her, hiding his true thoughts about Jackie; Rose saw through his act in an instant.

"Aw, she's not that bad. Just let her give you a kiss and she'll leave you alone."

"Easier said than done!" The Doctor made a sour face but walked towards the console. "I could use a nice cuppa… not that we'll get one from your mother."

"Doctor, that's rude!" Rose exclaimed as the engines started up.

The Doctor smiled wickedly and cocked his head. "So's this!" he proclaimed snarkily as the TARDIS shot up off the ground and into the sky on a tremendous wave of light and noise, leaving the crowd of seventeenth century humans mortally terrified.


	2. Chapter 2

**PLAGUE**

**TWO**

Jack had hit the mute button on his phone. The entire team was standing in his office.

"Surely there's something we can do?" asked Gwen.

"I don't know… if we go up there, we'll blow our cover; there'll be no way to protect the identity of this organization. It'll change everything forever and not for the better." Jack shook his head.

Wil Beinert looked at him, her green eyes intense. "Then we have a ship?"

He smiled back wanly, "Yes, as a matter of fact _I_ do, Professor. But it's not designed for intra-solar system flight. It's a planetary escape vehicle – a lifeboat actually. It's fast… maybe too fast to make a jump into low earth orbit."

"There's no one else, we have to try." Wil blinked at Jack, waiting for his decision while the others nodded in agreement with her statement.

After a beat, Jack punched the mute button. "We're on it. We'll be in touch. Keep the reporters away from us long as you can."

He killed the call, stood up and looked at Wil. "You're with me. The rest of you, get ready for the media circus."


	3. Chapter 3

**PLAGUE**

**THREE**

Jack had led Wil on what felt like a two kilometer jog through scores of tunnels that finally led into an enormous cavern.

Inside was the most beautiful spaceship Wil had ever seen. She gasped at the sight of immense silver membrane mirrors she estimated were at least a half kilometer wide. Shimmering softly, the ship looked alive and alert.

"This is 'Sunjammer'," whispered Jack. "I named her after a ship in an Arthur C. Clarke story. She's got photon sails that can be powered by massive ground-based lasers and optical mirrors we have in a different part of the complex as well as at other terran ground stations. She's an inter-stellar light sail ship of alien make and design, and she's all mine."

He smiled and folded his arms, gazing at his gorgeous ship.

"Her sails…?" Wil murmured.

"Her sails are nanotube mesh weaves created by using molecular manufacturing. This technology is not available on present-day earth. They are hyper-light, hyper-strong and incredibly flexible – they can be folded and unfolded countless times without damage, both in the atmosphere as well as the vacuum of space. Plus, they're smart. They self-deploy and to some extent self-steer.

"She's unique; priceless. And like I said, I've kept her in reserve in case…" He looked at Wil and then looked away, slightly embarrassed. "In case I ever need to make a quick escape.

"She's got a limited payload and is not built to hold a lot of people; four or five tops.

"Getting her up there is going to be tricky; getting her back could be a real bitch.

"She's designed to travel 500 light-years, not 500 kilometers. I'm gonna need your help to adjust that."

"I'm here." Being nearly six feet tall, she didn't have to look up at him. He liked it.

"I won't order you to come along, but if you're willing, I'd like you to accompany me into space." He gallantly offered his arm to her, which she took.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world."

Jack gently touched his headset. "Toshiko, get the lasers ready; we're going for a drive."


	4. Chapter 4

**PLAGUE**

**FOUR**

The Sunjammer had easily been placed into low earth orbit and was on slow approach towards the international space station.

Their departure had been tricky as expected, but the ground-based systems performed flawlessly, and despite the fact solar sails work poorly in low orbit, the combination of lasers and optics, as configured and run by the brilliant Toshiko Sato, placed the ship in perfect geocentric orbit. Wil was now steering using the auxiliary vanes to change the attitude of the main sails, and she was using the sun to decelerate towards their ultimate goal, the space station.

NASA had been working with the U.S. Department of Defense to move a few of DOD's geosynchronous orbit satellites into position so as to assist in the re-entry of the Sunjammer. Jack had been briefed that the satellites' onboard masers were communication devices. He knew better. There was little doubt in his mind the masers were weaponry, and while the audacity of the revelation and its implications still astounded him, he filed away the potentially handy information for future use. In the meantime it was likely that the masers would be their ticket home.

Stupid twenty-first century humans, he thought. When they should be working on protecting their planet from external threats, leave it to them to be focused on killing each other.

Through the headset in his spacesuit's helmet Jack could hear Wil talking to herself, sometimes even softly singing. She'd come up to speed on his solar sail spacecraft with amazing alacrity. He wasn't quite sure how she did it, but he suspected that after 60 minutes of intense concentration she knew more about his ship than he. She seemed to both absorb and understand instantaneously. It was the _understanding_ that made her invaluable; it allowed her to devise solutions and solve problems at an astounding pace.

If she had a weakness, he mused, and it wasn't really her fault, it was her age.

Notwithstanding her incredible intelligence, and despite her academic awards, research grants, multiple doctorate degrees and numerous positions at prestigious universities, she still had all the failings and frailties of youth. She was sometimes painfully naïve; she often didn't know when to shut up; and she tended to deny her own mortality – she was liable to take risks with herself that horrified Jack.

A 'father figure' or even a big brother he was not, and yet he found himself at times trying to protect her beyond what he'd come to recognize as his norm. The rest of the team accepted this, although he'd not revealed to them how it had come to be. It was second nature for him to keep secrets and the way he felt about Wil was a perfect example of something that needed to be kept in the shadows; she was one of his weaknesses.

His thoughts were interrupted by the proximity alarm.

There were no 'windows' in the spacecraft. Instead there was video and other instrumentation feeding onto a HUD forward of their seats. As they approached the space station Wil went quiet and Jack began adjusting their views. There was debris. It didn't look good.

"It appears there were multiple implosions of indeterminate origin," Jack spoke to himself as much as Wil. "Scans show at present no life signs; we are not detecting human remains among the debris field. There's no E.M. coming from the site. It's gone dark.

"Docking is going to be a bitch. The shuttle's payload bay is open and the Shuttle Remote Manipulator System is extended. Using our impulse engines we can try hanging off the SRMS and then EVA in; I think it may be our best bet.

"Professor Beinert, do you concur?"

Wil smiled despite the fact she knew he couldn't see her face. "Yes, Captain. Your orders sir?"

He could hear the smile in her voice, and the unwavering confidence; he smiled back. "Then make it so."


	5. Chapter 5

**PLAGUE**

**FIVE**

There was no gravity; it was cold and it was dark. And there were corpses floating about.

Wil was fighting down the urge to vomit; it was not a good thing to throw up in one's space helmet. It was her first experience in a non-gravity environment, but she didn't think the lack of gravity was making her feel ill.

The disaster had obviously happened without warning. The crew had been taken unawares. All had died from depressurization and exposure to the vacuum of space. It had not been a pleasant death, nor instantaneous, although it had been relatively quick.

While Jack was investigating the damage to the station and shooting video, she'd been taking a census of death. She'd located eight bodies so far. The women's long hair had disturbed her and she found herself tucking the tresses in however possible to stop it from floating around their faces.

Wil was relieved to see Jack coming towards her, the exterior lights on his space suit illuminating his surroundings as well as the path ahead.

"How are you doing?" he asked.

"I've found eight dead people. All died from exposure. It appears that none of them had time to react to what was happening. I've been stowing their bodies as best I can."

"Yes," Jack replied. "But how are _you_ doing?"

"I'm okay, Jack. Better now that you're here."

"Let's try to locate the ninth, do you know who it is?"

"Yes, a male. One of the shuttle payload specialists. He's French and his name is, or was, Julian Teitler."

As they moved slowly from the main living quarters module into one of the primary airlocks towards another module Jack was explaining what he'd learned, which wasn't much.

"In numerous locations there are signs of impact. There were multiple hits to the station and the shuttle. The size of the punctures seems to vary. I haven't seen any indication that what caused the punctures traveled through the station and egressed opposite from where it entered; that makes me think they weren't micro-singularities – besides The Doctor told me the Time Lords had made sure microscopic black holes weren't randomly wandering about the galaxies."

Wil had moved off a bit and was examining some storage lockers. "How are we going to get the bodies on board our ship?" she asked.

"We're not."

"Huh?"

"This is search and rescue, not a recovery mission."

"What?"

"We're not bringing the bodies back with us."

"But, Jack…"

"No, Wil. That's final."

"Jack…"

"Do you want me to spell it out? We don't have the time. I want to get out of here as quickly as possible; I don't like what I've seen and although the Sunjammer and her sails are made of stronger stuff than this station, I don't know if she'd be able to withstand…"

"JACK! SHUT THE FUCK UP."

Jack turned to stare at Wil, who was herself staring at a spacesuit suspended from a sort of free-standing rack.

"Jack, there's someone here, and I think he's alive."


	6. Chapter 6

**PLAGUE**

**SIX**

The homecoming was not as expected.

Jackie was parked on the couch, in front of the television, remote in hand.

When Rose opened the door and cheerily announced, "We're home!" she was met with a stern glance.

"Hush! Something has happened at the international space station. There's been an accident – they've lost touch with the station and the space shuttle. The Endeavour, she arrived yesterday; or was it the day before? I don't remember. But there are nine people up there!"

The Doctor and Rose quietly moved behind Jackie to watch. Jackie turned up the volume for them, unnecessarily. Or was it, The Doctor wondered, to stop them from talking?

The news announcer was reporting that neither the Americans nor the Russians had a way to quickly initiate a search and rescue.

Jackie pressed the mute button and turned to look hopefully at The Doctor. "Have you come to help them?"

The Doctor shook his head vehemently.

"Doctor!" said Rose.

"No, there's nothing I can do. I'll tell you the same thing I told Carl Sagan during Apollo 13 – space travel is a messy and dangerous business. If your planet wants to venture into space, you must accept the risks and consequences. If something goes wrong you either fix it or you fail. Either way you must learn from your mistakes and move on. Or not…" (1)

Rose looked at him, ready to argue but saw the look of absolute resolve on his face.

Jackie made a disgusted sound and turned back towards the television; mumbling something uncomplimentary under her breath she set the volume on high.

--

(1) See my one shot "Canned Primate."


	7. Chapter 7

**PLAGUE**

**SEVEN**

The Doctor finally had his tea. Jackie was giving him the silent treatment, which was okay as far as he was concerned. She and Rose were in the kitchen, talking underneath the constant drone of the television.

He'd been looking through a pile of entertainment weeklies, catching up on all the latest gossip and on the verge of becoming Very Bored.

Suddenly there was a loud tone announcing breaking news and all three turned to look at the T.V. screen.

"NASA has revealed a British Special Ops team will attempt a mission to the international space station. We are trying to obtain further official information on this but anonymous sources tell us a heretofore unidentified space vehicle carrying a small team will make an effort to dock with the station and rescue any survivors from what we've been told was a catastrophic event.

"There has been no communication from the station or the docked shuttle since the incident occurred approximately seventy-five minutes ago. Our exclusive anonymous sources also inform us the team will be departing momentarily, if they've not already, as time is of the essence before the rescue mission becomes one of recovery."

The Doctor put down his cup; both Rose and Jackie were looking at him expectantly.

"It isn't me!" He answered their unvoiced question. "But I have a sneaking suspicion I know who it might be and frankly, I'm surprised."

"What?" harped Jackie. "You're surprised that someone might be more of a hero than you?"

He ignored her unflattering tone. "Well… he's that. I won't deny it. But no, rather that he'd open himself up to enormous and relentless public scrutiny. It's not like him – he tends to keep under the radar."

The Doctor ducked to avoid the dishtowel Jackie hurled in his direction as she sneered. "Maybe he's reconsidered his priorities, eh?"

He leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. Rose knew that look and put an index finger to her lips, signaling her mother to keep the peace. Then she nodded towards the bedroom and the two women padded out, leaving The Doctor to his musings.

Jack evidently didn't have the same scruples when it came to interfering with human spacefairing. 'A big can of worms… a _huge_ can of worms… Squiggly, fat, slimy, ugly, icky worms,' The Doctor believed his friend had just opened. And probably a gigantic mistake… A totally positive outcome from the scenario was unlikely.

And yet… not knowing what sort of pressures had been placed on him, Jack was at his core a hero and this was certainly a circumstance that required one.

The Doctor had to now decide with Jack's involvement – and there was no doubt in his mind that it was Jack – what his own role in the affair would be. The non-interference rule didn't apply to his friend and occasional companion. Moreover, he had a sneaking suspicion that something was simply very wrong about the whole situation. The feeling wasn't based on any real information, but rather on simple gut instinct.

He laughed at himself for a moment. He'd never been a big believer in intuition. That was Rose's role… going by hunch rather than hard data. He wondered if they were becoming like an old married couple, each over time becoming more akin to the other, the two of them merging into one combined 'unit'.

'Rose-Doctor', 'Doctor-Rose' he sub-vocalized to himself, the words rolling easily through his thoughts; the accompanying images soothing.

He shook himself mentally. That comfortable fusing of psyche would do nothing but benefit him, although he didn't know whether or not it would be a plus for her…

"Rose!" he yelled. "Come on. We're leaving!"

In a heartbeat she was standing next to him, bag slung over her shoulder. "Where are we going?"

"Where else? Cardiff."

The two hurried out the door. The Doctor already too preoccupied to say 'good-bye' to Jackie, who stood in the kitchen and watched them leave.

After the door closed she walked to where he'd been sitting and picked up his cup; it was still half-full.


	8. Chapter 8

**PLAGUE**

**EIGHT**

The Doctor and Rose stood staring wide-eyed at the display monitor.

They had parked in their usual spot at the Cardiff Millennium Centre, but that was the only normal aspect on this most unusual of days.

The plaza was filled with hundreds if not thousands of people. There were film crews, production vehicles, satellite dishes and news reporters. There were security people and police trying keep the general public away from the news folks and the crackpots carrying placards or wearing E.T. masks away from the general public.

"You see?" The Doctor put on his glasses and then tapped a knuckle repeatedly on the monitor. "I could've told him this would happen! He's gone and done it now. Torchwood's going to be the magnet for every nutcase in the country who's looking to track down aliens, or who claims they've been abducted by LGMs!"

Rose looked at him blankly and shook her head.

"'Little Green Men'! Or 'Little Gray Men', depending on what television shows you watch." The Doctor continued on with his rant. "The djinni is out of the bottle and Jack, well, Jack's SOL."

With that he flashed a wicked grin and strode up towards the door.

"Doctor! You're not going out there?"

"Nah… I just want to stand in the entrance and have a look. No one can see us, especially with their minds so focused on something else. We're safe.

"Blimey!" he exclaimed as the sounds and smells of the crowd hit him in the face when he opened the door.

A man selling pasties out of a crate he was carrying walked right past him. The Doctor was tempted to reach out and grab one, but then thought better of it and snatched his hand back. He stood there for a moment, hands in his pockets, contemplating the great sea of humanity before him.

What had started out as a common reaction to a terrible disaster had morphed into an obsession of quite a different nature. The requisite national, indeed the _international_ grieving would instead be replaced by something else. Something less admirable and potentially way more dangerous, The Doctor knew. Just how dangerous depended in part on what Jack found up at the space station, and how the authorities would spin those findings, if spinning was required.

Rose's voice interrupted his thoughts as she called him back to the monitor; he closed and locked the door and jogged back up to her.

She pointed at a small figure standing at the center of a crowd of reporters and The Doctor readjusted the glasses on the bridge of his nose to get a better look.

"That's Ianto Jones. He's one of Jack's employees."

"Looks like they're trying to do some damage control." The Doctor chuckled ruefully. "I think it may be too late for that!"

"Poor Ianto!" Rose sighed.

"Oh, don't feel too sorry for him. It looks like he's holding his own, and do you see those big fellows next to him? They appear to be bodyguards. I wouldn't worry over much."

"What about us, Doctor? What are we going to do?"

"Well…" he said, taking off his glasses and looking at her. "I think we're going to have to fly direct!

"Allons-y!"

He grinned brilliantly and then paused a beat.

"Ah, too bad! If we could grab Ianto first I could say 'Allons-y Ianto!' but instead it's just… Well… let's go!"


	9. Chapter 9

**PLAGUE**

**NINE**

The various involved governmental and non-governmental organizations were still arguing over what to do with the lone survivor of the space station catastrophe when Sunjammer came to rest in a desolate quarry northwest of Cardiff.

Working with the local constabulary and the Cardiff authorities, the Torchwood team had cordoned off an area of several square kilometers ("gas leak" the curious had been told), and Owen met the returning travelers with the SUV.

No media or other onlookers were present to see them hurried into the vehicle and driven off.

Once in the car and behind dimmed windows, Jack and Wil removed their helmets, but left the French _astronaute_ as they had found him, fully suited. He was alive, with stable vital signs thanks to the life support in his suit, but unconscious. It was fortunate that he was so small, and Jack so large; the latter had strapped the young man to his chest in order to get him off the station, rather than spend the time to locate or jury-rig some sort of carrier. It had been messy and difficult but they'd managed to get the Frenchman out and strapped down in the Sunjammer.

Monsieur Teitler had been totally oblivious to the whole process.

Rescuing a survivor had helped Wil quiet the pain of leaving the deceased behind. To Jack they were just empty shells, but for her – she couldn't see them that way. They'd been people with loves, desires, hopes and dreams. All quashed forever, now.

She thought of the Japanese woman who she'd found strapped in a sleeping creche, her long hair softly moving around her face as if she was alive – but she had instead been horribly dead. Wil closed her eyes and stifled a small sob. Owen, as usual driving like a bat out of hell, glanced sideways at her but said nothing.

She found herself both envying and abhorring Jack's apparent callousness. She glanced up into the rear-view mirror and saw that he appeared to be sleeping. But she knew better – she knew Jack didn't sleep. During the long conversations she'd had with him, The Doctor and Rose back in the Brave Woman galaxy they'd talked mostly about her – embarrassingly and endlessly about her – but they also had spoken at length of themselves.

That's when he'd told her that he couldn't die, and didn't sleep.

She had believed him of course, believed everything they'd revealed about themselves – the Captain, the Time Lord and his loyal companion.

However, she'd had trouble believing what they'd said about _her_, and what she'd done. But along with the rest she'd accepted and embraced it, and then she'd moved on.

Standing still was not one of her hobbies.

She looked up at him again. Jack's concern was for the living, not the lifeless. Was it partially because he was jealous, she wondered -- envious of the dead?

Owen veered around a corner into the tunnel that led directly down into the complex. He looked up at his rear-view mirror and snapped "Jack! Wake up! We're here."

Wil was still gazing into the mirror and with a small amount of alarm saw Jack's eyes flutter open and what seemed to be a startled look of confusion flash across his face.

Could he have lied, she wondered. Had he been asleep?

Whatever, he appeared to recover quickly as he barked out orders. "I want Ianto back here on the double; have Tosh and Gwen meet us with a gurney, and then tell them to head out and deal with the media. We'll take our visitor directly to the clinic."

"Already done," responded Owen, who, Wil thought, looked as rattled as she felt.


	10. Chapter 10

**PLAGUE**

**TEN**

A team of NASA specialists would arrive at Torchwood within the hour to retrieve their comrade, who was at present in the medical clinic, hooked up to a bank of monitors and still very unconscious.

Few knew that the complex underneath _Roald Dahl Plass_ housed one of the most advanced medical facilities in the country, along with one of the most brilliant physicians.

Said physician was currently examining a patient, but not the Frenchman. Rather Owen was down in the vault, crouched over a Weevil that was laid out on the floor. He looked over his shoulder at Jack, who was standing behind him, and pronounced with an exaggerated scowl, "He's dead, Jim."

Jack blinked. "Both of them?"

Owen nodded in affirmation.

"But how? When?"

"I'm a doctor not a xenobiologist!"

By the pained look on Jack's face, Owen realized he'd gone too far, so he reined himself in. Besides, it really wasn't a laughing matter.

"I don't know how, not yet. I don't see any evidence of injury. As to when… we'll have to check the video but it couldn't have happened more than a few minutes ago; someone would've noticed. I'm going to need to do an autopsy; that should help us get better answers to your questions."

"Damn," said Jack. "On top of everything else _this_ has to happen. Well, when it rains, it pours."

Owen nodded in silent agreement and took out a sheet from his bag to cover the body.

"Jack, Owen," Ianto's voice came over the complex's com system. "You'd better come up to the clinic. We've got a problem."

"And it is pouring…" groaned Jack.


	11. Chapter 11

**PLAGUE**

**ELEVEN**

Wil and Ianto were standing at the French _astronaute's_ bedside while Owen and Jack looked at one of the monitors.

"He's right, Jack," said Owen. "The EEG is flat – there's no brain activity. He's not in a coma and he's not in a vegetative state; he's brain dead. There's no discernible evidence of consciousness. I don't understand how respiration and heartbeat continue to function without life support. There's something fishy going on here."

Wil was staring at the man's face in disbelief when she heard an odd sound behind her. Turning round she saw Owen looking down in shock at Jack, who'd collapsed in a heap on the floor.

The physician looked up at her with absolute dread and said, "Quarantine."

She responded, "Lockdown."

They both turned to look at Ianto and yelled as one: "NOW!"

Ianto hit a switch on the wall and Torchwood totally sealed itself off from the outside world; over the din of the alarm he asked, "Gwen and Tosh?"

It was Owen who answered. "They're on the outside, there's nothing we can do; no one can come in while we're in quarantine isolation. No one can leave, either."

Owen winced. "And can you turn off the bloody alarm?"

Ianto nodded, walked to a computer and punched a few keys. Owen leaned over Jack, checking for vital signs as the clamor of the alarm was at first silenced but then replaced with a louder and very unfamiliar sound -- unfamiliar to Owen that is, but not to Wil nor Ianto.

"Oh my God!" cried Wil as she sprinted towards the hub, Ianto close behind her.

"Hey! Where…" Owen managed to inquire, but too late. They were already gone and he was left alone with the unconscious Jack.

Wil and Ianto arrived just in time to see a tall, wooden blue box materialize and the door open to reveal The Doctor, who was smiling cheerily.

"No!" they both screamed as he stepped out from the entrance. His smile morphed to a look of befuddled surprise.

"What?" the Time Lord asked, just before he gracefully crumpled to the floor; his long brown coat muffling the sound of his fall.


	12. Chapter 12

**PLAGUE**

**TWELVE**

Owen now had three patients in his medical bay's ICU.

There had been no way to isolate the Frenchman, and the physician cursed his short-sightedness for not recognizing the possible need for such a capacity.

Although now he suspected it was too late – the damage had already been done.

It turned out to be fortunate in at least one respect to have Gwen and Tosh on the outside. The two women had been working with the authorities and military to chase off the crowds and make a large portion of the area around Torchwood, as well as Sunjammer's landing site, inaccessible.

Owen had no idea if whatever it was that had killed two Weevils and threatened the lives of at least three other individuals had been contained by the lockdown.

So far none of the other humans in the complex were experiencing any ill effects. There was no word yet from the outside to indicate the condition had spread beyond Torchwood.

Despite that, he felt extremely fearful and at least partly overwhelmed. He had confidence in his abilities; he knew he was good – but he wasn't sure he was good enough to deal on his own with an unidentified virulent and possibly lethal contagion.

Rose had wanted The Doctor to be moved back into the TARDIS but the others disagreed. As Wil rightly pointed out, the TARDIS could monitor him just fine where he was; the Time Lord didn't need to be physically in contact with his ship for their connection to persist.

At least Rose had convinced them that no medicines of any type were to be used on The Doctor.

"It's too dangerous," she'd said. "He's not like us and he's told me common substances like aspirin can harm or even kill him. We can't take the risk."

Nor had she allowed Owen to hook up any instruments to The Doctor. Or to take any blood.

The physician could see he wasn't going to win that battle, at least at present, so he retreated.

"Where were you, before you came here?" Owen asked her.

"Cambridge," she answered. And then added more quietly: "1665. Just before they closed it down."

Owen flashed a suspicious look.

"The Doctor said we'd be fine. We were safe. We weren't exposed to the plague. That isn't what made him sick!"

Wil was shaking her head at Owen, indicating the line of inquiry was a dead end, so he dropped it.

With Ianto's help Owen had managed to change The Doctor into green scrubs; Rose carefully hung his suit and coat in a small closet, next to Jack's clothes.

She then took up residence at The Doctor's bedside, holding his hand and murmuring softly to him.

He looked feverish, but his skin was cool to the touch. He mumbled at times, usually in a language none of them understood, occasionally he spoke in English but the expressions were incoherent – if the situation had been different it'd have been funny. Rose heard English words like 'derivatives', 'integrals', and 'infinitesimals', and imagined he was dreaming of Newton.

Nothing he said made any sense.

When he muttered strange-sounding and unrecognizable sounds full of clicks, burrs and squeaks she wondered why the TARDIS wasn't translating him properly. What it because he was ill, or were there other reasons?

She calmly wiped the sweat off his brow, but her tranquil exterior in no way matched the intense dread she was hiding in her heart. One of her worst fears, a silent terror she'd never admitted, was that of The Doctor falling ill and being unable to do anything to help him.

She remembered the last time he'd been sick, after he'd regenerated, and it petrified her that the cure had been stumbled upon only accidentally. She knew they couldn't count on such good luck again, and it made her feel helpless.

Her hopes rested with Owen, who along with Wil was in the lab examining blood and additional samples taken from the other two patients, and running tests that would perhaps identify what had befallen her Doctor.

Certainly her over-protectiveness hadn't made things easy for the physician. But it was such an overwhelmingly strong instinct that even her fear for The Doctor's life didn't trump it. And that's all she had to go on at present – her intuition, no matter how irrational it seemed.

She looked over her shoulder at Jack, who was in the next bed. Rose leaned back and tenderly stroked his face. The man of action, normally so full of energy and life didn't move – he was scarcely breathing…

…the strong and solid friend she'd always believed she could go to when she was in trouble and all else failed was in trouble himself.

In an incredibly short amount of time her carefully hidden anxieties and paranoid phobias had all become manifest in one fell swoop.

It was her worst nightmare; she closed her eyes and wished for a miracle.

Ianto, sitting at a computer across the room watched her, his heart breaking.


	13. Chapter 13

**PLAGUE**

**THIRTEEN**

No one was particularly surprised when Jack suddenly recovered, on his own, three hours after falling ill.

He opened his eyes and saw Rose, sitting at the bed next to his. Something, perhaps a change in his breathing, made her turn and look at him.

"Am I in heaven?" Jack asked her.

She smiled wanly, her face puffy with exhaustion and stress. But her eyes sparkled as she shook her head.

He smiled back at her and reached out to warmly touch her hand. "Welcome to my house."

"Thanks," she replied and then shifted back in her chair so he could see who was in the next bed. His blue eyes became steely cold.

"Ianto," he knew the man was in the room without seeing him. "What's going on?"

The young Welshman walked silently to Jack's bedside. "Two Weevils are dead, but you knew that already. You've been unconscious for almost four hours, as has The Doctor, who was taken ill as soon as he arrived here. Owen believes the Frenchman is the vector but hasn't identified any pathogenic suspects, yet; he and Wil are continuing the search. The facility is under a high-level quarantine and we're in isolation. Tosh and Gwen were on the outside when we initiated the lockdown. The Doctor's ship broke through our quarantine accidentally – there was nothing we could do to stop it."

Informed by the monitoring cameras that Jack had revived, Wil and Owen came running in, the latter pulling out his stethoscope. He was cut short with a wave of the Captain's hand.

"Report," said Jack, sitting up.

"I don't know what it is, it's clearly a pathogen of some type but we're not finding anything we can identify as an infectious agent in the samples we've taken. We've sealed off Torchwood, its surrounding vicinity, and your landing site, but if we don't understand how it spreads we can't determine if it has escaped into the wild or not.

"Until, that is, it does, and by then it may be too late to do anything. Jack, this could be bad."

"None of you humans have presented with similar symptoms?"

Owen scowled at Jack, shaking his head in confusion.

"Uh… Think of me…" the Captain frowned thoughtfully. "Well, remember that line from 'The Hitchhiker's Guide' where Arthur drinks something that is not quite but almost like tea? Think of me as not quite but almost human."

Jack closed his eyes, wishing that the revelation could've come under different circumstances.

"Look, I'm not from this planet, and I believe the only reason I recovered is that I'm damned hard to bring down and keep down. Ianto, contact Gwen and have them check on the non-terrans we know are in the vicinity. Have them start in the sewers. Owen, I think our alien autopsy got kicked up to a higher priority level; you and Wil get on it. Immediately.

"Rose," he turned to her, softening his voice. "Tell me what happened to The Doctor."

Before she could speak, though, he looked down at his pea green scrubs and bellowed, "And would someone please bring my clothes? This is so not my color!"


	14. Chapter 14

**PLAGUE**

**FOURTEEN**

Owen had both Weevils splayed out in the autopsy room. Jack was standing next to him, examining one of the dissected corpses and trying not to feel queasy.

"Both of them died from what resembles a subarachnoid hemorrhage in a meninges layer of the brain. I've not spent 'quality time' like this with a Weevil before. They aren't physiologically so different than us… well, than me, actually." He gave Jack a pointed look before continuing.

"They've a similar complex brain structure – they have meninges membranes, neurons and glial cells. And their brains are divided into regions just like ours. Do you see the blood here?" Owen was pointing to a spot in the brain of one of the Weevils. "Blood has contaminated the cerebrospinal fluid. Both of them have subarachnoid bleeds in roughly the same area. Now, I don't normally believe in coincidences…"

Jack interrupted him. "This is no coincidence. Something killed these Weevils by giving them hemorrhagic strokes; quick, effective and absolutely deadly. The question is what was it?"

Owen shook his head. "I need to do a cerebral arteriography followed by an analysis of the cerebrospinal fluid and brain tissue. I'm guessing we might find something there that will tell us what caused the aneurysms."

Wil walked in speaking to her headset. "I'm talking to Gwen," she looked at Jack. "She and Tosh report that so far all the Weevils they've found beneath the city are dead."

"Jesus God," said Jack.

"They stopped counting at a three hundred bodies and are requesting further instructions."

"Are the police with them?"

Wil turned away, spoke softly for a moment and then turned back.

"PC Andy is there."

"Tell him to seal off the sewers. Have Gwen call London and advise them to start checking all the usual locations. Then she and Tosh should head for the abandoned mines outside the city and assess our other major cluster of extra-terrestrials."

"Right," Wil said as she walked off.

Jack looked at Owen. "I think we should put our astronaut on ice. Let's isolate him in the morgue and freeze him. Do you agree?"

Owen nodded. "I've got all the samples I want from him, including CSF. He's more of a hazard than I'm comfortable with at the moment. Unless there's something _special_ about him like there is about you, Jack, I give him zero chance to recover."

His last sentence sounded like a leading question, but Jack let it go. It wasn't the time or place to open up about his past.

"Good, then I'll have Ianto take care of him. You get to work on those samples. Let me know as soon as you find something."

He turned to leave but was halted by the sound of Owen's voice. "Uh, Jack, I have one other question. What are we going to do about The Doctor?"

He didn't bother to look back. "Leave him alone."

And then he left the room.


	15. Chapter 15

**PLAGUE**

**FIFTEEN**

Wil had finally talked Rose into getting some rest and was sitting by The Doctor's bedside.

The lights had been turned down low and she was alone in the room with the Time Lord.

He was no longer mumbling. Before leaving, Rose had one last time smoothed the hair back from his forehead with a damp cloth. Wil studied his pallid face. His soulful brown eyes were gently closed and the slightest of smiles graced his lips.

Wil thought him beautiful in an ethereal sort of way. He looked peaceful.

From the moment she had met him – and she realized she was remembering the _second_ time she'd actually met him, having decided to have the first purged from her memory – she'd been captivated by his aura of energy, grace and confidence.

She considered herself beyond fortunate to have encountered him; to have encountered any of these extraordinary people.

Even though from the earliest of times she'd been told continually that she was 'special', she'd never completely felt that way. The attributes that her parents, teachers and others thought made her unique often felt like liabilities to her.

There'd been many times when she had craved normalcy.

Having become acquainted with The Doctor, Rose, Jack and the rest of the Torchwood team, she now knew what 'special' really meant and was honored anyone believed she should be included in that category.

Personally, she often doubted she belonged there with them; she was not nearly as exceptional as they thought.

As _he_ thought... She examined his face closely and wondered what The Doctor was thinking at that moment; or had that remarkable mind of his gone dark?

She looked down at his hands, folded elegantly over his breast.

He had the long, slender fingers of a musician. When she'd asked he had denied having any musical abilities beyond being an appreciative audience – at least in his current regeneration – but she suspected he could most likely play whichever instrument he set his mind to.

She recalled the cast of Chopin's left hand she had once viewed in a Prague museum. It had been made shortly after his death and the memory continued to fascinate her. To look at a three-dimensional object like that – a thing that had once been a person's hand – Chopin's hand, which had played for the very first time some of the most beautiful music ever composed, had been an astonishing experience; The Doctor's hands reminded her of Chopin's…

'Wait,' she said to herself, momentarily confused. 'I've had this thought before…'

She shook her head to clear out what she believed were cobwebs of fatigue and reached out to softly stroke one of The Doctor's hands.

As she did, she felt something like a tiny electrical charge – an emotional thrill – run through her, and she turned her head to look at his face and saw…

She saw that his eyes had opened.

Wil froze in embarrassment, or surprise, or both. But she continued to stare into his eyes, and as she did she heard him speak without speaking.

'The TARDIS,' she heard. 'Take me to the TARDIS.'

She looked around, frightened. She was still all alone in the room with the Time Lord.

'It's okay,' the voice said. 'Don't alarm the others, but do it now.'

Was there urgency in the voice? She thought so.

She stood up, leaned over, moved the covers away and picked up The Doctor like a child in her arms, resting his head against her shoulder.

His eyes were closed once again.

She worked out religiously every day, and wasn't by any means a weak woman, but he seemed incredibly light to her and was no trouble at all to lift. His skin was cool to the touch and she felt a chill through her clothing where he pressed against her.

'Good,' she heard. 'Now go.'

She padded out of the room, The Doctor's body secure against her own.


	16. Chapter 16

**PLAGUE**

**SIXTEEN**

The TARDIS doors stood wide open.

Wil thought it strange, but didn't stop to wonder about it overmuch as she walked through the entrance and up the ramp.

She was not surprised to hear the doors close behind her.

Wil gently lowered The Doctor to the floor and stood looking at him, wondering what to do next.

She didn't have long to wait.

"Wil," a voice spoke out, but not only inside her head; the air in the room resonated with the word. It was not The Doctor's voice – at least not _solely_ his voice.

"Wil, remember."

And then, she did.


	17. Chapter 17

**PLAGUE**

**SEVENTEEN**

When they heard the TARDIS engines the others came rushing from where-ever they'd been, in various states of dishevelment and disarray.

They were, of course, too late.

Rose screamed, "Doctor!" and fell to the ground in a dead faint as the ship disappeared.

Jack looked around, did a quick head count and then went to her as Owen was crouching down doing a quick examination.

"She'll be all right," the physician opined. "Let's get her to the clinic."

Jack gently lifted Rose and carried her to the bed where The Doctor had been lying just moments before.

Owen evaluated her swiftly once again, nodded at Jack and left the room.

As he was pulling up the blanket her eyes flickered open, filled with fear.

"Be calm, hush," he whispered and placed his palm lightly against her forehead. "Wil has taken The Doctor. I know this makes you unhappy but think for a moment. There's nothing we can do for him here and she may be able to help him in ways you can not."

Rose grabbed Jack's hand and pressed it to her cheek as she let out a partially restrained sob.

"I trust Wil," he said. "And so should you. We all know she's extraordinarily capable and exceptionally strong. I know…"

She turned away from him but he gently guided her face back and looked into her eyes.

"I _know_ she won't let anything bad happen to him."

Jack sat down on the bed and took Rose in his arms.

"If you don't trust her, trust me," he added.

"Now, get some sleep. We have a lot of work to do in the morning."

He got under the blanket and held her close.


	18. Chapter 18

**PLAGUE**

**EIGHTTEEN**

That's how Ianto found the two of them a few hours later when he came looking for Jack.

At first he was embarrassed having come upon them like that, but Jack opened his eyes, smiled and winked.

"Would you make me a coffee?" he mouthed silently.

Ianto nodded and padded out. Jack pulled his numbed left arm from behind Rose and shook her gently.

"Rose, wake up. We're gonna need your help."

She opened her eyes and he could tell by watching her face the memories of the preceding night were replaying in her thoughts; she shook herself free of them and nodded.

"Can I get some tea?"

"Go find Ianto; he'll make you a cup."

She kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For everything."

She left him alone with his thoughts, which were gloomy at best.

Still, it was a relief to not worry about The Doctor. He picked up the pillow from the bed and held it to his face – he could still smell a bit of the Time Lord on the linens – a combination of wonderful spicy scents unlike anything else in the cosmos, which was and could only ever be The Doctor.

Jack hated to admit it but he was actually a bit thankful The Doctor was gone. It was true what he'd told Rose, there was nothing they could do for him; and if he wasn't in any condition to help them, he'd be a source of constant concern and a distraction.

Besides, while he respected Owen as a physician, he wasn't sure he would ever let the man loose on his precious Doctor…

Not that he didn't miss the Time Lord, especially now when everything seemed to be going to hell; Jack deeply inhaled the fragrance from the pillow one last time and then sheepishly put it down, smoothing the fabric carefully with his hand as he reflected.

He did trust Wil; that had also been the truth. It was curious though – he allowed his mind to wander for a moment and wondered who had fired up the TARDIS.

Jack did a series of neck stretches and finished looking at the ceiling. If it had been Wil at the console, then what relief he'd managed to muster was tinged with more than just a tiny bit of apprehension.


	19. Chapter 19

**PLAGUE**

**NINETEEN**

What was left of the Captain's team was sitting around the conference table.

"Owen, tell us what you have."

"We're dealing with some sort of nanotechnology – molecular machinery. When the nanomaterials interact with biomaterials we get catalytic activity that causes the hemorrhaging. These are self-sufficient engineered robots a billionth of a meter in size. As far as I know, they are not of this planet and they are programmed, apparently, to kill."

The physician leaned back in his chair, "The astronaut's brain and other tissues are riddled with them."

Jack groaned loudly and put his head in his hands.

"You had no way of knowing. Jack, they're smaller than a DNA double-helix, and 200 times smaller than the smallest cellular lifeform on earth. There's no mechanism we could've used to contain them, even if we'd known they were there. I've tested myself and they're in my bloodstream but inert. I don't know if they're turned off or just waiting for another command..."

He looked sympathetically at his Captain. "You had them in your tissue samples when you were comatose, but I don't find any present in the more recent samples I've taken. Your body must've come up with some novel way to eradicate them. Lucky you! If I were to bet, I'd put my money on Ianto and Rose playing host to these buggers as well; we seem to be asymptomatic carriers, more than likely capable of infecting others."

Owen shook his head sullenly, "I don't know of any way to destroy them without totally annihilating the host."

"Well that's happy news. Good work, by the way, Doctor Harper. Ianto?"

"Gwen and Tosh report the abandoned coal mines were E.T. graveyards. Nothing was left alive. They also checked on the handful of aliens we knew were living in the city itself; all are dead. They're now on their way to London to assist there, but neither is optimistic at this point."

Ianto frowned deeply. "Jack, the Shrake that resided in the old mines were not even remotely humanoid. They were more insectoid than anything else, and Tosh thinks the cause of death might be related to a contamination or corruption of the spiracles that lead to their respiratory system. She believes they asphyxiated. She said it was not a good way to go. There were hundreds of them and they're all evidently deceased."

"Interesting mutation," Owen thought out loud.

"Who would design and build tiny plague machines like this?" asked Rose, incredulously shaking her head. "It just doesn't make sense."

"Someone who wants to kill quickly and efficiently," said Jack, rubbing his temples. "But I agree with you, it is senseless."

The Captain turned back to the young physician. "Owen, keep working on those damn things – I don't want them inert, I want them eradicated."

Jack's gaze shifted. "Rose, get on the phone in my office, call the White House and tell them everything we've learned, there's a number on my desk."

He caught her reaction. "Just inform them you're with Torchwood, they'll listen."

She nodded in response. He returned the gesture curtly and then moved on.

"Ianto, get me NASA. We have to figure out a way to safely and effectively take out the space station; it has to be pulverized to a sub-atomic scale and I'm not sure Torchwood has the right kind of missiles on hand."


	20. Chapter 20

**PLAGUE**

**TWENTY**

Like most people of action, Jack didn't look back and never second-guessed himself.

He made the best decisions he could under the circumstances presented to him.

Still, he couldn't help but contemplate his recent activities and wonder if he might've done things differently in order to avoid the current dire situation.

He could've declined to go up to the space station in the first place. But eventually either the Americans or Russians, or even the Chinese, would've gone up there and more than likely recovered the bodies, brought them back and the end result would've been the same.

No… that wouldn't have changed anything.

He could've left the Frenchman behind, but that would have been out of the question, even if he'd been there alone without Wil as his guiding conscience. He fully acknowledged that he was often heartless – that was his job, his role – but not even he would have been capable of leaving the man behind.

But even if he had, he suspected that the nanotech would've followed him back anyway.

And although hindsight is always twenty-twenty, no one could have ever predicted their existence. The existence of the scourge, the reality of it, still shocked him.

He'd screwed up, but there's nothing different he could've, would've, or should've done.

Jack forgave himself, just as The Doctor would have forgiven him, and moved on.


	21. Chapter 21

**PLAGUE**

**TWENTYONE**

Wil had carried The Doctor outside and laid him carefully on the ground.

She sat, cross-legged, a few feet away, softly singing arias from her favorite operas and watching him.

When she noticed he was beginning to stir she scooted in closer and murmured, "Doctor, wake up. Wake up."

With a start he opened his eyes, quickly looked around and inhaled sharply.

He was lying on thick, dark red grass, surrounded by a forest of beautiful, shimmering, silver-leafed trees under a burnt orange sky that held two suns, the second of which was just then rising behind what could only be the Citadel.

"What? How?" He asked, momentarily confused.

Wil repressed the urge to touch him, but instead smiled and answered calmly, "You're on Gallifrey – the Gallifrey I created long, long ago in honor of the Time Lords and of you."

She brought her hands together in front of her heart, steepled her fingers and then folded them down. "I was told to bring you home and this seemed the only reasonable option. I thought at first it was you – your voice instructing me – later I believed it was the TARDIS, but in reality the two of you are one and the same, aren't you?"

Her green eyes glowed slightly golden.

He nodded almost imperceptibly; shifting to his side and bending his elbow he propped up his head with his hand. "What happened to you?"

"I remembered," was her simple answer. But then she thought better of it and elaborated.

"The TARDIS offered to give me back everything I had been, and more. It was the only way to save you; although you were fighting valiantly, you were losing the battle for your life against the plague that had felled you and which by now has ruthlessly killed so many. As I said, I was told to bring you home. I wasn't sure what that meant; it could mean many things, even Jackie's flat." She flashed a fiendish grin as he shuddered, and went on.

"I decided it meant Gallifrey but I was uncomfortable, to say the least, to take you back to the real 'Shining World of the Seven Systems'… aside from the timeline getting corrupted, I wasn't sure we'd be welcome or that they'd let us through the force fields."

Again she smiled beatifically. "So I brought you and the TARDIS here. I created this place during the period when I imagined I was a Time Lord. I hope you don't think it blasphemous that I fashioned it?"

He shook his head and softly whispered, "No, I don't".

"I spent eons here, thinking about you and your people. They weren't as bad as I'd accused them of being, you know. I'm sorry if I was over-critical or insulting to you, it was unkind. They were an old, venerable and powerful race, deserving of respect even though they at times behaved 'badly' when dealing with the moral complexity of interfering in the natural flow of history."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow and then couldn't help but laugh out loud. It felt wonderful to laugh!

It was the reaction Wil had been hoping for. She leaned forward, picked a blade of grass, put its end in her mouth, and waited.

"And what happened to me?" he finally asked her.

"You were infected the moment you arrived at Torchwood and opened the door, Doctor."

She shrugged. "I suspect you knew there was something dangerous outside the TARDIS, in fact I'm certain your ship told you as much. Why you ignored her advice, I'll never understand…"

She looked at him with his boyish grin and then corrected herself.

"Well, perhaps I do understand. Regardless, you foolishly exposed yourself and were lucky to survive the plague's initial incursion into your body. As I already mentioned, your body was fighting the onslaught but losing. You were likely going to die with no chance of regeneration. The TARDIS knew this. So she restored me and together we saved your life. You are free of the infection and permanently protected."

Wil carefully selected another blade of grass, offered it to him and he took it, putting it in his mouth.

The taste reminded him of his childhood.

"Thank you," he said after a minute of contemplative silence.

"You're very welcome."

"Uh, what happened to my clothes?" He was wearing a baggy green scrub suit. Barefoot and short-sleeved, he was feeling a tad naked.

She laughed. "I left them in Cardiff; no time, you know."

"Ah, I know only too well…"

"If you examine your memories, and I suspect you already have, you'll know the nature of the beasties that nearly killed you, and you'll also realize what havoc they are wreaking on earth at the moment."

"Is Jack all right?"

"Yes, of course. It'll take more than tiny robots to bring him down."

"Then, we have to go back."

"Well now, that's something we really do need to discuss…"


	22. Chapter 22

**PLAGUE**

**TWENTYTWO**

"Huh?"

"I want you to leave me here."

"What? No! Impossible!" He sat up, crossed his legs and faced her.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't leave people behind. Not this way. Not you. Not ever."

"But I wish it."

"Why?" he pleaded, not comprehending.

"I need to be alone for awhile, maybe a long while. I'm not sure where I belong, or what I want to do and I need time to think."

"You can think back in Cardiff. You can be alone there, too. It can all be arranged."

"No, I can't. Besides, Doctor, you do know what I am, don't you?"

He shook his head but she saw the light of realization behind his beautiful brown eyes. It was only the acceptance that was missing, but she knew it would come in time.

"I'm not sure there's room for both of us in that galaxy, maybe the entire universe. I understand you feel terribly alone some times, but I can't be the cure for that. I'm not sure in my present state that we're meant to co-exist, Doctor, we are too much alike. You know this, so does your TARDIS."

The acceptance still wasn't there, she kept trying.

"It's okay; really, I knew it was part of the bargain I made to save your life. You are as precious to me as I am to you. You are, you know, precious – the only other remaining Time Lord…

"But now at least there's two of us," she smiled. "We'll be that much harder to exterminate completely! Besides, what I said is true – I really don't feel like I belong on earth. Maybe eventually I will, but for now this is where I want to be. Some day, when I'm ready, I'll ask you to bring me back. And if you really need me, you'll know where to find me, right?"

She waited, watching his face.

"Jack is gonna kill me."

"No I really don't think he will, Doctor. He won't be happy at first but eventually he'll end up being relieved. You see, he doesn't really know what to do with me…" She shook her head.

"Look, I cramp his style. He can't reconcile the divergent feelings he has for me, the poor, conflicted man. I mean, he loves me and cares about me and wants to protect me, but nevertheless he wants to include me on his team, assign me to dangerous missions, and put me at risk. The ambiguity tears him apart."

She pulled her knees up to her chest, encircling them with her arms.

"He's a study in contradictions. When he sends me out into the field, he worries I'll get hurt; when he keeps me at the base, he worries I'll become bored and disappear. I don't fit his model of a nice, tidy, black and white universe. Where Jack wants definitive answers, I present only endless questions…" She paused a beat.

"Besides, he's also scared to death of me, God knows why," she raised an eyebrow.

"I guarantee you once he gets over the initial shock, he'll be grateful. Of course, in the meantime, he may punch out your lights – I'd watch out for his left hook if I were you."

He rose to his feet and she followed. "Are you certain?" he asked. But she saw the acceptance had finally taken hold.

"Yes," she took his face in her hands and softly kissed him. He softly kissed her back and she could taste the salt of his tears.

Pulling away, she added, "I love you. Never forget it."

"Come with me." He had to try one last time. She shook her head, smiling.

He briefly closed his eyes, "I think I'm going to miss you."

She gazed at something over his right shoulder. "I'm not leaving you entirely; go to your ship – I'm a part of her now. You'll have to ignore the both of us when we tell you not to do something stupid.

"And don't be surprised, I did a little redecorating while you were asleep."

The Time Lord turned his head and saw his TARDIS nestled amongst the glimmering silver trees. He smiled at the sight. Then he thought of something, "Hey, did you just call me stu…"

When he looked back, she was gone.


	23. Chapter 23

**PLAGUE**

**TWENTYTHREE**

The Doctor slowly strolled barefoot through the warm, soft, grass towards his TARDIS.

The door had been invitingly left open.

He paused briefly; worried once he walked through the entrance that something important would be inexorably lost forever.

Walking up the ramp his concerns were quickly forgotten as he was overwhelmed with wonderful sensations.

First he heard the sound of subdued, wistful music. A Bach keyboard work, he realized; the 'Goldberg Variations'… the intimacy and emotions of it delighted him. He closed his eyes and listened as the notes of the aria and its variations washed over his racing thoughts and calmed them.

Second was the splendid fragrance in the air. It was a combination of lavender and jasmine with a touch of sandalwood thrown in; at least that's what he imagined. The aroma was incredibly subtle and yet glorious. He inhaled deeply, filling his lungs, and found it soothing.

Finally he noticed the cello and music stand that were resting against the wall. At first he scoffed, but then realized they'd been safely secured with small straps. Bless her; Wil had made them TARDIS-proof!

As he wandered from room to room he gradually perceived there were shelves and nooks and crannies everywhere filled with musical instruments. Not only earth instruments from various cultures and time periods, but music devices from many different planets, including numerous exceedingly curious objects he'd never seen before.

He smiled and then he laughed out loud.

Walking over to a shelf, The Doctor took down what appeared to be a Stradivarius reproduction. Or was it the real thing, he wondered. Regardless, he thought, it was a lovely violin.

He held it tenderly to his left shoulder, picked up the bow, and began to play.


	24. Chapter 24

**PLAGUE**

**TWENTYFOUR**

Jack was on the phone with the President of the United States, for the fourth time in nearly three days. It was not an uplifting phone call.

They had succeeded in vaporizing the international space station and the attached shuttle. No one in government had questioned Jack's recommendation. The media on the other hand were a different matter and herding them had proven difficult.

Still, the fact was that every human on the planet was infested with nanotech and no one knew how to eliminate it, or what it might do next. All things considered, and no matter how unfortunate it seemed, most people were far more freaked out about the contamination than the loss of the space station.

Of course almost all of those same people were ignorant of the other, terrible tragedy – the deaths of thousands of sentient entities who'd just happened to have originated on a planet other than earth. For those creatures, it was a horrific case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The President was seeking reassurances that Jack could not in good conscience provide. What had happened was appalling and there was no guarantee it wasn't going to get worse. Much worse.

When Jack heard the familiar sound he exclaimed, "Gotta go!" and hung up the phone.

Owen was in his lab, asleep over his scanning electron microscope. He'd been having a dream, a relatively pleasant one all things considered, and his subconscious was trying its best to ignore the noise.

When the clamor finally woke him, he jumped hitting his head soundly on the SEM's sample chamber. "Shit!" he cursed as he knocked over his chair and ran out the door.

Rose and Ianto were in the meeting room on a conference phone talking to Tosh and Gwen. The news continued to be appalling. Apparently there wasn't a single non-terrestrial being left alive on the planet. Reports from contacts in Asia, Australia, Africa and the Americas were all negative. While the cause of death varied from race to race, the end result was always, depressingly, the same.

When Rose heard the sound she couldn't at first believe her ears. She looked for confirmation from Ianto, who smiled and nodded his head. She was gone before he finished nodding.

Jack was the first to see The Doctor emerge, disheveled, bespectacled, barefoot and endearingly geeky-looking in his loose-fitting scrubs; he couldn't help but grin at the sight.

From behind the Captain came a joyous whoop as Rose sped past him and straight into The Doctor's arms; he swung her through the air and laughed.

Jack was still watching the joyful reunion, and waiting, as Owen and Ianto came up beside him. The Captain's smile slowly started to fade as his eyes turned cold.


	25. Chapter 25

**PLAGUE**

**TWENTYFIVE**

The Doctor had noted Jack's psychological transfiguration and as he put Rose down he whispered something in her ear; she stood aside, immediately becoming serious.

"Captain."

"Doctor."

The Time Lord waited.

"Where's Wil?"

"Erm," The Doctor looked around nervously. "Do you have an office where we can go talk privately?"

"I think you need to tell me right here and now what has happened."

Jack's posture and demeanor were becoming more forceful and aggressive.

Ianto and Owen eyed each other nervously behind Jack's back, wondering what the hell they were going to do if the man went ballistic on them.

"Can I at least get my clothes, first?"

"No, I don't think so." The Captain folded his arms and widened his stance.

Rose stepped forward. "Jack, what do you think you're doing?"

He scowled. "I want to know_ now_ what he did with Wil."

"Jack," The Doctor approached his friend, taking off his glasses in case he got hit in the face. "She didn't want to come back here. She wanted to stay."

"Where?"

"The Brave Woman galaxy."

"Why?"

"Because she has a lot to think about."

"She could've done that here."

"That's just what I told her! I did! I told her she could do her thinking in Cardiff and she said she couldn't. She said that she needed to be alone."

"She could be alone here."

"Right, I told her that too. There was no arguing with her, Jack."

The two men's faces were inches apart.

"You know what she's like, Jack. Once she's made up her mind…"

Jack blinked. The Doctor relaxed a smidgeon.

"Yeah, I know, damn it," the Captain growled. "What the hell's the matter with her?"

There was a long pause.

"Jack, she's a Time Lord."

_That _took Jack and everyone else in the room by surprise.

"What?!"

"Possibly the most intelligent and powerful Time Lord that has ever lived – and that's including me!"

"But how?"

The Doctor's hands had gone off on their own looking for pockets. When they couldn't find any, he folded his arms in a brief imitation of Jack.

"Do you remember when we found her that last time in the Brave Woman galaxy she told us she had believed for a while that she was a Time Lord? I wasn't sure then, but I suspected that the TARDIS had done something quite extraordinary to her. With her… For her…"

He reached out his hand towards Rose, who came closer and took it in hers.

"I've been with the TARDIS for centuries. In many ways," and here he squeezed Rose's hand comfortingly, "that ship is my oldest and greatest companion. But there are myriad things I don't know about her; she was already unimaginably old when I acquired her. And she keeps secrets – we all do – it's normal sentient behavior. I don't know how the TARDIS engineered it and I may never know, but where I wasn't certain before I am _absolutely_ convinced now. Jack, it's true. Wil is every bit as much a Time Lord as I."

He inhaled deeply and exhaled through pursed lips, softly blowing out his breath.

"But I'm not sure Wil has fully embraced or even totally accepted this 'gift'. If she wishes, she can refuse it. So you see, as she explained, she has a lot to think about."

Jack looked around the room, eyes filling with tears, at all the places he'd seen Wil walking, standing or sitting. The space seemed emptier; felt colder. And so did his heart.

He ended up staring at The Doctor, using the Time Lord's visage to drag himself back to the present.

"What next?" Jack asked him. It was as much a rhetorical as a literal question. The Doctor opted for the latter.

"Well, I wonder if might get my clothes?"

"Yeah, sure, you bet. And then maybe you can tell us how we can get rid of those fucking little robots?"

"Indubitably!"


	26. Chapter 26

**PLAGUE**

**TWENTYSIX**

Jack's gaze met The Doctor's.

There was something profoundly critical left unsaid; an important question gone unanswered.

Jack asked it now, silently, his eyes unblinkingly holding fast the eyes of the Time Lord.

In the briefest of silences:

'And what else has Wil become?'

The returned stare was unwavering, but the response was irresolute.

'The only thing I can be certain of is my uncertainty. She said the TARDIS had given back everything she had been _and more_.'

Jack closed his eyes, breaking the connection, his heart grown colder still.


	27. Chapter 27

**PLAGUE**

**TWENTYSEVEN**

They were all sitting around the meeting table.

The Doctor was precariously perched on the back of a chair, his feet on the seat. He was holding his sonic screwdriver in his hands – playing with it actually – and speaking.

"You really don't need to get rid of those 'little robots', you see. They'll get rid of themselves in a few weeks." The screwdriver moved from hand to hand and back again as he spoke.

"They are a sort of automated house-cleaning service. Created eons ago by a race that no longer exists, for a purpose that remains a mystery – they were perhaps either a WMD or some sort of defensive mechanism. Whatever, their goal seems to be a kind of cosmic ethnic cleansing. They arrive, determine the indigenous paradigm, self-replicate in order to reach critical mass and then stop multiplying. They infect all lifeforms, protecting the natives, who become carriers, and killing anything they determine is 'foreign'."

He tossed the sonic screwdriver high into the air with his right hand, watched it spin and caught it on its way down with his left.

"The way they kill is elegantly effective and brilliantly conceived. As Owen already discovered, they mutate, transforming their behavior to match the weaknesses of their intended victims. Once again, Jack, your super-power stopped you from permanently dying. As for me, I owe my continued existence to Wil and the TARDIS. If it hadn't been for her, for them, I'd be dead. Enduringly dead."

The screwdriver flew up into the air again.

"Would you stop that?" Jack interrupted The Doctor's newest sport. "Even though it's just a sonic screwdriver, it makes me nervous to have you tossing it around like a toy."

"Right, sorry," The Doctor said sheepishly. "Any questions?"

"Yeah, why?" asked Jack.

"Well, like I said, we don't know who created them. It's hard to imagine any race with such a high level of technical sophistication being xenophobic enough to purposefully release such a weapon loose into the wild." He sighed audibly.

"I suppose it is possible an accident occurred, maybe they were exterminated by their own creation. Maybe it escaped while the custodians were looking the other way. Occam's razor tells us what happened here probably wasn't intentional, but who knows? I've never seen anything remotely like this plague, and the Time Lord database doesn't mention it. Its transport mechanism is a bit of a mystery, too. Although it's clear in the case of the space station…"

"Doctor," Jack interrupted him. "Is there anything you can do to eradicate them?"

"Well, like I said, they've stopped replicating. In a few weeks…"

"CAN YOU GET RID OF THEM?"

"Oh yes!" He growled and was out the door, calling over his shoulder. "I'll be back in a flash!"

Startled, they all stared dumbly at each other, blinking, and then in unison stood up and followed.


	28. Chapter 28

**PLAGUE**

**TWENTYEIGHT**

The group met him as he bounded out of the TARDIS, in his hand he held what appeared to be a dandelion gone to seed.

"What's that?" asked Rose.

"Well…" The Doctor looked down at the globe of fine filaments in his hand. "It's a protection, a cure, a sort of anti-weapon; designed and created for us by Wil."

He breathed out gently on the sphere and a few of the 'seeds' dispersed into the air and disappeared.

"We need to take it outside."

"I know just the place!" exclaimed Jack. "But first, kill the quarantine, Ianto." He looked at his colleague, who quickly typed a command on a keyboard; there was a rush of air as the facility unsealed. They then followed him silently up a long spiral staircase that exited through a hatch onto the roof of the Millennium Centre.

It was nighttime and the stars were out in full force.

"Would you like the honor?" The Doctor asked Jack.

"How about we give it to Rose?"

"No," The Doctor said softly, brown eyes meeting blue. "Unfortunately it has to be one of us."

"Then I'd be proud."

The Doctor handed the 'flower' to Jack, who took a deep breath, held the object to his lips and gently blew on it. The silvery strands were picked up by the breeze and carried away.

"That's it," said the Lord of Time, looking up at the sky. "As quickly as it spread, if not quicker, the nanotech will now disappear. Within a very short period of time all that will remain are the memories."

"And corpses," Jack sadly reminded him.

"Yes, those too. There's nothing I can do about those."

Rose reached for The Doctor's hand and held it tightly.

"Except, of course, your frozen Frenchman, Jack. Who you'll discover once you thaw him out, is quite fine."

Jack took Rose's other hand, and then reached out for Ianto, who in turn took Owen's hand.

"And what about Wil?" the Captain asked.

The Doctor was still looking up at the stars. The sun was about to rise; the midnight sky had begun to turn an inky blue with a breath of green. "She left a message for you in the TARDIS. You should go listen to it."

"Did you?"

"No, Jack. I never read other people's mail…"


	29. Epilogue

**PLAGUE**

**EPILOGUE**

Fifteen minutes later Jack walked out from the TARDIS, his eyes red from crying.

The Doctor was there to meet him.

"So, what did she say?"

"She asked me to take care of her turtles. And she told me to keep an eye on you, Doctor, even though you'd deny you needed it."

Jack smiled wanly and the Time Lord laughed at him.

"She warned me it'd be a tough assignment."

"Anything else, Captain?"

"Yeah, some other stuff…"

The two men were silent for a long minute as The Doctor waited.

"She invited me to look her up in a couple billion years. She said by then she might be ready for some company."

Tears were running down Jack Harkness's face.

"Come here," said the Lord of Time as he opened his arms and enveloped his friend.

Warmly embraced, his face nestled close against his precious friend's neck, Jack thought he heard The Doctor softly singing.

**FINIS**

_Not Sickness stains the Brave,  
Nor any Dart,  
Nor Doubt of Scene to come,  
But an adjourning Heart —_

Emily Dickenson

**_AFTERWORD_**

_The sequel to "Plague" is called "Revelations"._


End file.
